


Tsesarevna

by mynewnameisfluffy



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Darcy Lewis is Bucky's daughter, Darcy Lewis is Natasha's daughter, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-06 04:43:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4208370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mynewnameisfluffy/pseuds/mynewnameisfluffy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy Katherine Lewis, as she was now know, was not who she appeared to be. This was entirely to her liking, and according to her plan. You cannot avoid shadowy government agencies you were once a part of, while staying the same person you once where. And so she had adapted, changed, and taken up new identities from time to time, all so she could stay out of the clutches of those who had made her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A new aquaintance

According to all documents available on Darcy Katherine Lewis, she was born on the 19th of June, 1990 in Washington D.C.

This is a lie.

All available documents state that her parents died in a car-crash in 2005, leaving the young miss Lewis an emancipated minor.

This is a lie.

The records detailing the life of Darcy Lewis states she is working on a bachelors degree in political science from Culver University, set to graduate cum laude.

This is not the full truth.

Darcy was born Darya Ekaterina Yakovna Romanova the 20th of January 1955, in the Red Room’s facilities near Stalingrad.

As far as she knows, both of her parents are alive, if her contacts have correct and updated information. Her father, the American, still held in the service of her old masters. Her mother, defected to the U.S. a couple of years after Darcy herself.

As Katherine Nelson, she studied law at NYU from 1991. Jaimie Buchanan studied computer science at Baker College from 1995. Romana Smith started her masters in mechanical engineering at Louisiana State in 1998. 2003 saw Alana Miller enroll at Ohio University to earn a bachelor in chemistry. After this, she became restless, fidgety, afraid they were catching up on her. She took some years off, living under the radar, but keeping tabs on her contacts in case something that required her attention arose. Darcy Katherine Lewis enrolled at Culver University studying political science in 2008.

Now, in the year of our lord 2011, Darcy Lewis lives in a refurnished auto shop in the New Mexico dessert, as the intern of one Jane Foster, astrophysicist. She transcribes notes, files documents, runs experiments, feeds and waters the scientist, all while using most of her down time keeping an eye on the world which she fled, from afar, and keeping up the skills they had crammed into her as well they could.

Right this moment, though, she is sitting in a van, in the middle of the dessert, with Jane, and Jane’s mentor Erik, waiting for the aurora Jane had predicted. Erik had arrived just a few hours prior, and he and Jane had been discussing the findings and Jane’s theory non stop ever since. Darcy understood little of it, as she had only studied applied physics, and her cover did not lend itself to her knowing much physics at all, so it was all well and good. She was bored.

“Can I turn on the radio?” she asked Jane, who sat on the roof of the van with Erik.

“No.” Jane answered.

“Jane, you can’t keep doing this.” Erik said, concern evident in his manner.

“The last seventeen occurrences have been predictable to the second.” Jane says, as she descends from the roof into the back of the van, looking in her notes for any mistakes that can explain the lack of aurora.

“Jane, you’re an astrophysicist, not some storm chaser.” Erik said, as he sat himself down beside Jane. Jane had now taken her computer in hand, and started looking up data from the previous sightings.

“I’m telling you, there is a connection between these atmospheric disturbances and my research. Erik, I wouldn’t have asked you to fly out here if I wasn’t absolutely sure.”

As Jane says this, Darcy’s attention is drawn to the side mirror on the driver’s side of the van. An immense aurora looking nothing like the ones they have seen prior has appeared in the sky to their left.

“Jane, I think you wanna see this.”

“What is that?” Jane asks, before she, along with Erik, go back out the roof. Right after, they clamber back down, and they are off towards the weird aurora. Darcy, as the designated lab-monkey, is driving into what closely resembles a hurricane. Jane sits shotgun, filming the whole thing while they are nearing, and Erik clings on for dear life in the back. As they get closer and closer and no-one says stop, Darcy makes a decision, and veers off course.

“Darcy, what are you doing?” Jane cries out.

“I am not dying for six college credits!” Darcy states. Jane tries to take the wheel from her, and for being so skinny, the woman is strong. Keeping her cover entails not showing off her full strength, so Darcy has to let Jane win out, at least a bit, and so they are yet again heading into the tornadolike thing from the sky. A great burst of lightning occurs, and Jane and Darcy once again fight for dominance over the steering wheel, before the column disappears, revealing a tall and muscled person standing right in their path. Darcy and Jane both scream, before Darcy stands on the break with all her might, futile as it is. As they hit the person with the van and slide off to the side before they stop, Darcy starts planning on how to get away from this without getting on the governments radar. She has not been successfully deflecting everyone and everything after her for nearly three decades just to be caught for running someone over. They sit there for a few seconds, getting their bearings, before they as one get out of the car and approach the fallen form of their accidental victim.

“I think that was legally your fault.” Darcy says to Jane, both because she's trying to process how to get out of this, and because Darcy runs her mouth all the time, which the part of her that is Darya greatly enjoys.

“Get the first aid kit.” Jane shouts. “Do me a favour and don’t be dead.” She says, directed at the person on the ground. “Please.”

As Darcy approaches with the first aid kit and a torch, Jane looks around and asks the obvious question: “Where did he come from?”

The guy, Darcy now saw, was tall, muscled, and blond. At the moment, he looked to be at a threat level of six out of ten, purely for his size, but before she had seen him move and fight, she couldn’t be sure.

“Wow. Does he need CPR? Because I totally know CPR.”

The guy groans and rolls over.

“Where did he come from?” Jane repeats.

Erik shrugs and huffs, looking bewildered. Now the blond heaves himself off the ground, and starts raving and grunting.

“You alright?” Darcy asks, because the dude seriously looks out off it.

“Hammer? Hammer?” he says, looking around wildly.

“Yeah, we can tell you’re hammered. It’s pretty obvious.” Darcy deadpans, as the dude now continues on to stumble wildly, and him being intoxicated and not just confused from his acquaintance with the van seems likely. She looks at him, fascinated.

“Oh my god Erik, look at this.” Jane gasps, and motions wildly at the ground where they’re standing, at some strange markings. “We have to move quickly before this all changes.” Jane immediately starts taking samples.

“Jane, we have to take him to the hospital.” Erik says, as the guy continues to stumble around.

“Father!” he shouts.

“He’s fine. Look at him.” Jane says, distracted by her findings.

“Heimdal! I know you can hear me! Open the Bifrost!” Blondie, as Darcy’s quietly named him, shouts at the sky. Yep. Drunk.

“Hospital. You go, I’ll stay.” Jane says, and continues taking samples.

Blondie turns and starts questioning Erik.

“You. What realm is this? Alfheim? Nornheim?”

Darcy has upgraded his threat level to an eight, and taken out her least conspicuous weapon, which is her taser, and aims it at him.

“New Mexico?” she answers, not quite sure what the dude is asking about.

“You dare threaten me, Thor, with so puny a weapon?” He starts walking towards her, and she fires. She hits him square in the chest, and he starts twitching before he goes down. Darcy has almost missed this, defying what others think of her because of her size. Besting people bigger than her. She didn’t miss what they made her do, though, so she’s glad she made it out.

Jane and Erik both turn towards her, shocked expressions clear as day on both their faces.

“What? He was freaking me out!” she defends herself.

This was not the full truth.

Her training took precedence, and demanded she take out the unknown threat, before he took her out.


	2. New discoveries are made

Pretending not to be as strong as she is, is a struggle when Erik wants her to help carry the downed dude into the van. So Darcy carried his legs, and pretended to visibly struggle with the load, although she could probably have carried the whole guy herself, with ease.

 

“Next time you decide to taser someone, make sure he is already in the car, okay?” Erik says, as they push Blondie into the van.

 

“Jane! Come on!” he shouts at her, as she is still sitting by the strange markings, collecting samples and taking pictures. Darcy jogs over, seats herself in the driver's seat, closes the door, and waits for the others. The ride to the hospital is a silent one, all are too aware of their unconscious load to talk.

 

When they got to the hospital, they went inside and said they had an unconscious man in the back of their van, and he was taken inside by the medical personell. Now, they were being interogated on their relation to this Thor.

 

“What is his name?” the receptionist asks.

 

“He said it was Thor?” Jane answers, although hesitantly.

 

“And your relationship to him?” the receptionist continued.

 

“I’ve never met him before.” Jane answers.

 

“Until she hit him with a car.” Darcy butts in, as it _was_ Jane’s fault, and the medics need all the information they can get about his injuries.

 

“I grazed him, but she tasered him.” Jane defends.

 

“Yes I did.” Darcy says with quite an amount of pride. Being victorious was always great, and now that she was allowed to celebrate such things, she did it at every opportunity.

 

That was all they had to tell the receptionist, and so they stood there awkwardly for a few moments, before they slinked off. They were, after all, the reason this Thor was now in the hospital.

 

They went back to their van, and drove to the auto-shop Jane had converted to be her lab-space. Here they started to process the data they had available of the incident, that being soil samples, energy readings, and photos, primarily. At least to Darcy’s understanding. After a while, Erik asked Jane:

 

“You don’t hink this was just a magnetic storm, do you?”

 

“Look, the lensing around these edges is characteristic of an Einstein-Rosen bridge.” Jane answered.

 

“A what?” Darcy asked. She’d not really understood much of what it was they were looking for, from Jane’s ramblings, and now was as good of a time to get an explanation as any.

 

“I thought you were a science major?” Erik asked her.

 

“Political science.” Darcy answered him. It was an important science, and she was not going to be looked down upon for her choice.

 

“She was the only applicant.” Jane defended. Not many people believed in Jane or her theories, but Darcy had, over time, found her endearing in all her narrowminded focus on her research.

 

“An Einstein-Rosen bridge is a theoretical connection between two different points of space and time.” Erik explained to Darcy, as Jane went around them to pick up a photo.

 

“It’s a wormhole.” Jane interupted. As Darcy walked away, over to the cork-board standing near the windows facing the road, Jane passed Erik a photo. “Erik, look. What do you see?”

 

“Stars.”

 

“Yeah, but not our stars. See, this is the star alignment for our quadrant this time of year,” Jane hands Erik another photo. “and unless Ursa Minor decided to take a day off, these are someone else’s constellations.”

 

Darcy had been studying the photos pinned to the cork-board, and had found a body-shaped spot on one of the ones depicting the storm.

 

“Hey! Check this out.”

 

Jane and Erik came over, and looked at the image she was gesturing towards.

 

 “No, it can’t be.” Erik said, silently, in disbelief.

 

“I think I left something at the hospital.” Jane says, as she walks away from them, towards where the van is parked, with Darcy and Erik soon in tow.

 

The drive to the hospital was a tense one, as all of them tried to come to grips with the fact that the person they drove into, may have arrived there by a wormhole, which was by all earlier reckoning only a theory. Darcy was trying, somewhat successfully, to rearrange her worldview to include aliens.

 

As soon as they drove up to the hospital, they all jumped out and started running towards the entrance. Darcy never liked hospitals. Too bare, too glaring. Too many horrible memories. They walked, fast-paced, past a hospital room in great disorder, full of doctors explaining themselves to the local cops. Darcy noted this, as it might lead to trouble, if they were to fraternize too much with their new friend. The only obstacle against that, however, was that Thor was gone from his hospital room when they arrived.

 

“Oh, my God.” Was all Darcy could say, before they turned on their heels and were out of the hospital again, as being caught there by staff or police would be a bad idea.

 

“I just lost my most important piece of evidence.” Jane says, as she closes the door to the driver’s side of the van. “Typical.”

 

“So now what?” Darcy asks from the back of the van.

 

“We find him.” Jane says determinedly.

 

“Did you see what he did in there? I’m not sure finding him is the best idea.” Erik says.

 

“Well, our data can’t tell us what it was like being inside that event, and he can. So we’re gonna find him.” Jane says.

 

“Okay.” Darcy says, because Jane is determined, and nothing comes between a determined Jane and her goals. She starts going over ways in which she can use some of her more clandestine resources without Jane and Erik noticing in their hunt for the alien, for it to be a bit more efficient. As well as checking if her taser is loaded, just in case. She had seen some of his fighting against the medical personell, and had upgraded his threat level to a nine.

 

“So we’re gonna look all over New Mexico, right?” Erik says, mockingly.

 

“Exactly.” Jane says as she starts up the van, and reverses straight into the dude they are looking for.


	3. Feeding people: a common courtesy.

They’re out of the car in an instant, and moving towards the man Jane has run over yet again.

“I’m so sorry, I swear I’m not doing this on purpose.” Jane says apologetically. He looks befuddled, but accepts the hand Jane offered him with grace. “Come stay with us, as an apology. It’s the least we could do.” 

The drive back to the lab is silent, as Thor watches the scenery from the back, where he is seated beside Darcy. She’s not gonna lie, she tries peeking at his ass in that hospital gown. She’s not ashamed. 

They arrive back at the lab, where Jane tells Thor to go into the bathroom, and she’ll find him some clothes to wear. Meanwhile, Darcy and Erik has seated themselves at the table, and Jane wanders the room, looking in her notes. Darcy’s not really sure how she feels about taking in a possible threat to their security, other than apprehensive. Jane has decided that they are talking to this man, and so Darcy must follow. Both because it would cause suspicion if she voice any doubts, and because when Jane has a gut feeling, it’s often correct. 

“You know, for a homeless person, he’s pretty cut.” Darcy says, as Thor opens the door to the bathroom, and fixes the jeans better in place on his hips. As he walks towards them at the table, she calls out “Hey sorry I tased you!”

He starts fiddling with a computer mouse, much to Jane’s annoyance, which she voices with an “Excuse me, excuse me!” while jogging over to take it away from him. She gives him a not-so-subtle once-over, before looking down into her notes again. 

“What is this?” Thor asks, as he inspects the sweater he has borrowed, and finds a name-tag on it. 

“Oh.” Jane answers as she reaches out to remove it. “My ex. Good with patients, bad with relationships. They’re the only clothes that I had that would fit you.” She explains. 

“They will suffice.” Thor says, snippily.

“You’re welcome.” Jane replies, baffled, it seems, by this rude person. Darcy thinks he has no right to act as he does. They only ran him over twice.

“This mortal form has grown weak. I require sustenance.” 

An archaic way of expressing himself if Darcy has ever heard one, she thinks as she turns to look at Erik, eyebrows raised. He looks back at her, breathing deeply and crossing his arms, seemingly annoyed by the whole situation. Jane had gone to fix the only foodstuff she knew how to prepare for their guest, which was, off course, pop-tarts. The woman lived off of the things. Darcy was of little help in the matter, though, as she was wont to burn water if she tried to cook. 

Thor gulped down one pop-tart after another as fast as Jane could heat them, even though he seemed confused by the pastry, as if he had neither heard of nor tasted them before. Considering the prevalent theory of him being an alien of some sort, this was entirely plausible. 

When he finished the box and still wasn’t full, they went to the local diner, seeing as they didn’t have more food in the lab, and none of them could cook. As Thor was wolfing down a double serving of their biggest breakfast, Jane asked him:

“How’d you get inside that cloud?”

“Also, how could you eat an entire box of pop-tarts and still be this hungry?” Darcy asked. The only conclusion she could draw was that he, like her, had a greater metabolism than the regular earthling. 

He does not answer any of their questions, just continues to stuff his face with eggs, and sips his coffee. 

“This drink, I like it.” He says.

“I know. It’s great, right?” Darcy says. 

“Another!” he bellows, before he throws the cup, hard, to the ground. They all jump in shock, and Darcy would feel like she’s lost her touch in reading people, since she’d not foreseen this, if not for the fact that this was such an outlandish thing to do.

Izzy, the owner of the diner, who had fed them enough to be on first-name basis with them all, looks at them accusingly.

“Sorry, Izzy. Little accident.” Jane says, as she goes to clean up the mess. “What was that?” she asked Thor.

“It was delicious. I want another!” he answered. Darcy thought it a strange way to request one, though.

“Well, you could have just said so.” Jane says. 

“I just did.” Thor remarked, as if this was obvious. Which it kind of was.

“No, I mean, ask nicely.” Jane says. It seems a crash-course in local customs is in order.

“I meant no disrespect.” 

“Alright. Well no more smashing. Deal?”

“You have my word.”

Right that moment, some of the townspeople enters the diner. 

“The usual please, Izzy.” Says the first man.

“You missed all the excitement out at the crater.” Says the other.

“They’re saying some kind of satellite landed out in the desert.” The first continues. 

“Yeah, we were having a good time with it until the feds showed up.”

Feds? Why would there be feds? If there were feds, Darcy'd have to put her guard up, be as inconspicuous as possible. No more nightly training sessions then. Bummer.

“Excuse me? Did you say there was a satellite crash?” Jane asks the men sitting at the counter awaiting their food.

“Yeah.” Dude number two answers.

Darcy figures that if the feds have shown up, documents for their friend might need to be made.

“Oh my god, this is so going on Facebook. Smile!” she says to Thor, before she raises her phone to take a picture of the man. He obeys her order, and smiles from ear to ear, while still chewing.

“What did it look like, the satellite?” Erik asks the local men.

“I don’t know anything about satellites, but it was heavy. I mean, nobody could lift it.” Says local man number one.

As he says this, a realization seems to strike Thor, and he puts down his fork, before rising from the table.

“They said it was radioactive. I had my hands all over it.” Man number one continues.

Thor grabs the shoulder of local man number one, and asks:

“Which way?”

“Fifty miles west of here.” The man answers. 

“Well, I wouldn’t waste my time. Looked like the whole army was coming when we left.” says the other man, just as Jane rises to follow Thor, who is out the door.

Thor, as he seems to know little of local customs, walks into traffic, which just cements Darcy’s belief that the dude has to be either from outer space, or some sort of very reclusive, old fashioned cult. Jane runs after him, with Darcy and Erik in tow.

“Where are you going?” Jane asks, as they walk down the middle of the street.

“To get what belongs to me.” He answers matter of factly. 

“Oh, so you own a satellite now?” Jane scoffs.

“It’s not what they say it is.” He says.

Darcy is quite sure that he’s right. The government, and especially the letter agencies, always lie. She’d know. She was trained by one of them.

“Well, whatever it is, the government seems to think it is theirs. So, you intend to just go in there and take it?” Jane says.

“Yes.” He answers, as if it is obvious. “If you take me there now, I’ll tell you everything you wish to know.”

Oh no. He’s found Janes weakness. This will not end well, Darcy’s sure.

“Everything?” 

“Yes. All the answers you seek will be yours once I reclaim Mjolnir.”

“Myue-muh? Whats myue-muh?” Darcy asks. It’s probably nothing good, if the feds have decided it’s theirs.

“Can I have a word, Jane?” Erik asks, before walking off. Both Jane and Darcy follow.

“Please don’t do this.” He says.

“You saw what I saw last night. This is no coincidence. We have to find out what’s in that crater.” Jane says, softly.

Darcy silently disagrees. Whatever it is, they should stay clear of it. She’s done her damnedest to stay out of the way of the feds. Coming onto their radar for following this tiny astrophysicist with a love for science that trumps common sense is not a thing she wants. Voicing these complaints would be suspicious, though, so she doesn’t.

“But I’m not talking about the crater, I’m talking about him.” Erik says.

“But he’s promising us the answers.” Jane insists.

“He’s delusional.” Erik says. “Listen to what he’s saying. He’s talking about Mjolnir and Thor and Bifrost. It’s the stories I grew up with as a child.”

“I’m just going to drive him, that’s it.”

“He’s dangerous, Jane.” Erik says. Darcy very much agrees.

Jane seems to weigh it over in her mind for a while, before walking over to Thor.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t take you.” She says.

“Then this is where we say goodbye.” Thor says, before smiling, and lifting Jane’s hand up to his mouth to kiss. Jane giggles, smitten. 

“Um.” Jane says, smiling like a loon. “Thank you?” she giggles some more.

“Jane Foster, Erik Selvig, Darcy, farewell.” He says, before bowing slightly. Darcy smiles and does a tiny curtsy, like she was taught before one of her missions involving high society, and Erik bows slightly in return.

“All right. Back to work.” Erik says, before they turn and walk away, leaving him there in the middle of the road.


	4. A few obstacles occur

the moment they were about to turn the corner on the side of the diner, a truck containing familiar-looking machinery cuts in front of them.

“That’s my stuff!” Jane exclaims, surprised and annoyed. As the truck drives away, Jane just looks after it for a moment, before she runs into the lab. “What the hell is going on here?” she asks the agents currently packing away all of Jane's machinery. Darcy is sure these people are agents. No-one else on the planet acts like secret agents do; it’s ironically distinctive. 

“Ms. Foster, I’m Agent Coulson with S.H.I.E.L.D..”

“Is that meant to mean something to me?” Jane asked.

It meant something to Darcy. S.H.I.E.L.D. was one of the agencies she had had the most trouble with on the few occasions she had crossed their path, and also the most secretive and subtle of the American letter agencies. It wasn’t known to the general public. She had to act like she didn’t know exactly who they were, and hoped to God that they hadn’t found either her spare laptops nor her weapons stash.

“You can’t do this!” Jane yelled, as they continued to wheel out her machines and research. 

“Jane.” Erik said when he caught up with her. “Jane, this is a lot more serious than you realize. Let it go.” 

“Let it go?” she said, incredulously. “This is my life.” She spat at Agent Coulson.

“We’re investigating a security threat.” Agent Coulson said. Secret agent code for getting civilians to go along with just about anything. At least, that’s what it was in america. The code was different in different countries. “We need to appropriate your records and all your atmospheric data.”

“By appropriate you mean “steal”?” Jane asked. Darcy admired her determination and courage, but knew the fight against the will of a secret agency was futile. 

“Here, this should more than compensate you for your trouble.” Agent Thief, as Darcy now had dubbed him in support of her boss and friend, said as he handed Jane a cheque. 

“I can’t just buy replacements at Radio Shack, I made most of this equipment myself!” Jane said, in an attempt it seemed, to make them give her back the equipment. 

“Then I’m sure you can do it again.” Agent Thief said, unhelpfully. Rude.

“And I’m sure I can sue you for validating my constitutional rights. Darcy was sure they were, under article twelve, both dealing with personal property and tools needed for livelihood, but she wasn’t sure that S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn’t and wouldn’t suppress this so well that it never made it as far as court. They'd probably make Jane disappear.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Foster, but we’re the good guys.”

Well, he might think so. Others would be of a different persuasion, Darcy was sure. She had her suspicions that they weren’t pure to the core, even if they were the better of many evils, as far as she could discern. 

“So are we!” Jane countered, passionately. “I’m on the verge of understanding something extraordinary. And everything I know about this phenomenon is either in this lab, or in this book, and you can’t just take this away.” As she says this, one of the goons walk by, and snatch her book out of her hands. “Hey.” Jane moves to take it back, and both Agent Thief and Erik move to stop her. Eik is the more successful one.

“Jane. Easy! Easy. Jane.” Erik says, as he leads her away from the goon. 

“Thank you for your cooperation.” Agent Thief says, as the doors to the van they are taking away the last of the equipment in, and Darcy just barely holds herself back from decking the man. 

As the vans drove away, Darcy put a hand on her friends shoulder in what she hoped was a comforting gest. 

As always when something horrible happened, such as some of the equipment giving out on them, the power going out, or one of them having a bad day, they ended up on the roof of the now empty lab. Jane had searched the entirety of the lab to see if they had left something, anything, while Darcy snuck away to check on her hidden electronics, gadgets, and weapons. It seemed that none of them had been discovered, although they had taken the laptop she had in her room, as well as her iPod and her camera. 

“Years of research, gone.” Jane says.

“They even took my iPod.” Darcy adds. 

“What about the back-ups?” Erik asks.

“They took our back-ups. They took the back-ups of our back-ups. They were extremely thorough.” Of course they took everything they could find, Darcy thinks, if it would fit in the acronym, thorough would be part of it.

“I just downloaded like thirty songs onto there.” Darcy says. 

“Could you please stop with your iPod. Who are these people?” Jane asks.

“I knew this scientist.” Erik starts “The pioneer in gamma radiation. S.H.I.E.L.D. showed up, and he wasn’t heard from again.” Bruce Banner, Darcy’s memory offers. she'd been so caught up in her fear that she’d be outed that she hadn’t realized Erik knew about them from before, and was afraid for their safety.

“They’re not gonna do that to us. I’m gonna get everything back.” Jane says, with so much conviction, Darcy is inclined to believe it. 

“Come on, please, let me contact one of my colleagues. He’ had some dealing with these people before. I’ll email him, and maybe he can help.” He says.

“They took your laptop too.” Darcy adds, helpfully.

Erik just sighs in defeat.

“Isn’t there a computer in the library in town?” Jane asks. 

As Jane and Erik decide that they are going to go to the library so that Erik can contact his colleague, Darcy opts out of it. As soon as they are gone, she digs out her secret computer to do two things; check out why S.H.I.E.L.D. are here, and make their friend a new identity. The making of the new identity was easy, she could do it in her sleep. The trick would be to do it in such a way that it would be recognizable as fake to the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Make it look like something a girl who had made fake I.D.’s for herself to get into bars, and not something a real infiltration agent could have made. To make the “story” she was trying to construct around her bad I.D. as believable as possible, she used the name of Jane’s ex, Donald Blake, so that they could claim it was her ex, but that they had never broken up. If she was lucky, it sounded as bad as she thought it would. 

The more tricky part was trying to figure out why S.H.I.E.L.D. was there in the first place, without setting off any warning bells. She was sure it had something to do with Thor, and what he said was his. She could also easily believe that S.H.I.E.L.D. thought it now belonged to them, and needed to be catalogued, stored, and researched. What she needed to figure out was what it was. Her first instinct, as a student of this generation, was to google it, but she didn’t know the spelling of the name of whatever it was, so it was out of the question. Due to the same obstacle, some of her more covert ways of searching for answers would also be out of the question. She could try to contact some of her informants in S.H.I.E.L.D., but that would probably take too much time, and be a risky move. Stalking the site was her next plan, but she needed to be there when Jane and Erik came back, so she couldn’t do that. Which left hacking into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s databases her best option, which was hard and a fuckings risk on a good day. Which this was not. She was, thankfully or not, interrupted in her decision-making by the arrival of Jane and Erik, who were seemingly continuing an argument they had started in the car. As jane and Erik fight, first over Jane doing exactly what Erik advised against, and slowly moving over to the subject of Thor, Darcy leafed through a book Erik had dropped on the table.

“He committed a crime. He’s in jail.” Erik says. 

“I can’t just leave him there.” Jane counters

“Why?” Erik asks.

“You didn’t see what I saw!”

Just in this moment, Darcy comes over a familiar name in the book.

“Look! It’s Myeh-muh.” She says.

Jane comes over to look, and asks Erik:

“Where did you find this?”

“In the children’s section. I just wanted to show you how silly his story was” he says, sounding tired and defeated.

“But you’re the one who’s always pushing me to chase down every possibility, every opportunity.” Jane insists.

“I’m talking about science, not magic.” Erik answers her, angrily.

“Well, magic’s just science that we don’t understand yet! Arthur C. Clarke.” Jane counters.

“Who wrote science fiction.”

“A precursor to science fact!”

“In some cases, yes.”

“Well, if there is an Einstein-Rosen bridge, then there’s something on the other side. And advanced beings could have crossed it!”

“Jane.”

“A primitive culture like the vikings could have worshipped them as deities.” Darcy butts in, both in defense of her friend, but also to show of the fact that her science was a real and important science. 

“Yes, yes, exactly, thank you.” Jane exclaims.

“Mh-hmm.” Darcy puts on her best ‘fuck you, I’m right’, face after a short look at Jane, as they stare down Erik together. He sighs, and looks defeated. 

“Do we have any way of getting him out?” he asks, after a minute or so of staring at their united front.

“I made him a false I.D. under the name Donald Blake. We could claim he is also an astro-physicist, and one of your colleagues. They might release him to you, if you claim that.” Darcy says.

“You did what?” he asks.

“I entered him into the DMV’s archives, to give him a false identity. It’s quite easy.”

Both Erik and Jane look at her like she’s suddenly grown a second head.

“What? I wanted to vote!”


	5. In which friends of a friend drop by

Not long after Erik left, the goons came lurking. To anyone not trained, exceptionally well, to spot when she was being observed, it wouldn’t have registered. Darcy did notice them quite easily, and continued on like nothing was amiss. She did, however, check her person discreetly, to make sure all of her weapons were in place. They spent the next hours trying, and failing, to find something the goons left behind. Eventually, after looking everywhere four times, Jane called it a night. Darcy did as well, after once again taking an overlook over the room, noting all the bugs and cameras, before turning in without her usual nighttime routine of walking the perimeter. The agents keeping an eye on them might get suspicious. She couldn’t sleep yet, though, so she stayed up reading her latest harlequin romance. The hero, Rodrigo Rodrigues, had just confessed his eternal love for Maria Hernandes, and promised to take care of her and their unborn child, when Darcy heard someone pound heavily on Jane’s trailer. As she didn’t hear Jane cry out in shock, indignation, nor fury, Darcy decided it was probably Erik returning, with or without Thor. As she heard two people moving up to the roof, from the sound of the steps, seemingly Thor and Jane, she decided that Jane was no longer in any danger. Darcy put away Rodrigo and Maria’s discussion of what to name the baby, snapped her bracelet in place, and went to sleep. 

Darcy woke up at six the next morning, did one of her less intense strength routines, and went to shower and get dressed. She emerged into the kitchen of the lab at around fifteen past seven, as the luxury of a hot shower was one she relished, and used to its full potential. The second pot of coffee is in the making when Thor and Jane come down from the roof, looking surprisingly well-rested to have slept in deck chairs. 

“Dude, glad you’re back. How was your time with the jackbooted thugs?”

“It is a pleasure being back. My imprisonment was not enjoyable.”

“Imprisonment isn’t nice, most times. Janey, what’s for breakfast?” Darcy asks, just as Erik shuffles in from the trailer. 

“Scrambled eggs? And a fizzy tablet for Erik?”

Erik grumbles his agreement, and sits down at the table.

“I will assist you in preparing this meal, if it pleases you.” Thor announces. There is no other way of describing it.

“That would be great.” Jane beams at him. Darcy, amazed by the apparent change in Jane and Thor’s dynamic, sat down beside Erik. They sit there in silence while Jane and Thor busy themselves in the kitchen, Erik staring at the glas Jane put down in front of him. Just as the glas stops fizzing and Erik takes it off the table, Thor comes and sets their breakfasts down in front of them.

“Thank you.” She says, smiling up at him.

“Thank you” Erik croaks.

“You’re very welcome.” Thor says, as he walks back to the kitchen. 

Thor and Jane then brings their food to the table, and they eat in silence. Afterwards, when they’ve cleaned up and had more coffee, Jane starts to explain her theories to Erik. Darcy doesn’t get much of it, so she zones out.

“It’s a beautiful theory, Jane, but you won’t be able to convince the scientific community of it. Not without hard evidence.” Erik says.

Darcy is so preoccupied with staring at Jane, who is so sure of her theory and the validity of it, that even though Darcy didn’t understand a word, she is sure her friend/boss is right, that she doesn’t register the people coming towards them before they’re knocking on the doors.

“We found you!” the biggest of them shouts, as all four of them stare at Thor. Aliens. In what looks like old timey armour. Waving happily at a person who was seemingly one of their comrades, and most likely an officer of some kind, judging by the arrogance he’d displayed when he got there. 

The three of them, Jane, Erik, and Darcy, drop their mugs in surprise. Darcy mostly because she just registered that they spoke Russian. 

“My friends!” Thor bellows, in English, as he starts running towards his friends, as they open the doors and run at him.

“This is good, this is good.” The bearded one says, as he embraces Thor.

“I don’t believe it.” Erik says, breathlessly. 

Darcy can only stare, and catalog them all as level ten threat, just to be sure. All she knows is, with the supplies she has on her, she can’t take them all if they’re a danger to her or her friends.

“Oh, excuse me. Lady Sif and the Warriors Three.” The bearded man says, after Thor has gone on to hug the Asian dude. 

Jane and Erik shares a look. Darcy is trying to make heads and tails of the situation at hand.

“My friends, I’ve never been happier to see anyone. But you should not have come.” Thor says to his newly arrived friends.

The bearded one scoffs, and turns to the blond one, who turns to Thor.

“We’re here to take you home.”

Darcy is still reeling and trying to work around the fact that everything the new arrivals are saying is in Russian. She’s tried to make eye contact with Erik to ask if he hears everything in Swedish, but she’s been unable to get his attention. 

“You know I can’t go home.” Thor says, mournfully. The woman, most probably Lady Sif, looks confused. “My father is dead because of me. And I must remain in exile.”

Jane looks like she’s starting to re-evalue Thor completely, while still being full of sympathy. 

“Thor.” Lady Sif says. “Your father still lives.”

As what she says seems to register with Thor, he gets a steely, angry look about him.

Just then, they can hear thunder clapping, and Thor, Lady Sif, and the Warriors Three run for the exit, Darcy, Jane, and Erik hot at their heels. A storm-cloud like the one that Thor arrived by is forming in the distance, promising ominous things. That’s what Darcy thinks, at least. 

“Was somebody else coming?” Darcy asks. She has enough wits about her to say it in English, so as not to make Erik and Jane wonder about her origins. 

They move into the street, as to see better and to prepare themselves in case whatever is there comes for them.

“Jane, you need to leave.” Thor says. Darcy wonders, briefly, if he sees Jane as their leader and means for all of them to leave, or for just Jane to leave, and that Darcy and Erik can fend for themselves in a fight. The English language can be confusing. 

“What are you gonna do?” Jane asks.

“I’m staying here.” Thor answers.

“Thor's gonna fight with us.” The bearded one exclaims. Thor walks over to them, grasping the bearded one’s shoulder.

“My friends. I’m just a man. I’ll only be in the way, or worse, get one of you killed. But I can help get these people to safety.”

“Well if you’re staying then so am I.” Jane says. Well, then she’s staying too, Darcy thinks, as dissuading Jane when she’s decided something is impossible. Darcy’ll at least get to keep her friend safe, and do some good in this world. Start redeeming herself from all the bad she’d done. Give an “up yours” to those who created her.

“We’ll need some time.” Thor says.

“You’ll have it. Erik says, also in English. Either he has also decided to speak in English so that Jane, and perhaps Thor and Darcy, will understand him, or he hears the warriors speak in English. Darcy does not know what his mother tongue is. 

“Okay, move it people.” Darya says in the most autorative voice she thinks Darcy has, to get the masses around them to move. 

Erik has run into the diner, supposedly to tell everyone to get away while they can. Darcy has been ushering everyone away on her run to the pet-shop, but as the thing sent after the warriors is now near, the people don’t need to be told twice. She helps the shop-keeper get the animals away, and is running away from the big robot, she’s determined it is, while holding a beagle. She hands it off to one of the pick-up-drivers about to leave town, and tells him:

“Can you take my dog? His name is Baker, I just named him twenty seconds ago.” Before handing him Baker, and waving goodbye, before continuing in her way. She’s decided that this thing is slightly above her training, at least with the weapons she has on her person, and the armour she hasn’t got, and has decided to leave it to the warriors, who seems to know what they’re dealing with. It was blowing stuff up by basically breathing fire, Darcy was staying the hell away from that shit. The two other male warriors threw the bearded one at the robot, just as Darcy, Thor, Jane, and Erik hid behind some pillars quite close to the action. Darcy was following Jane who was following Thor. Erik was probably also following Jane. The robot threw the bearded one into a car, but he didn’t seem overly affected by it, which cemented Darcy’s belief that these were aliens. Had they been artificially created supersoldiers, which was the only other viable option; one, they wouldn’t be wearing that kind of armour, and two, she would at least have had some knowledge of their existence. 

The robot has been closing in on the bearded one, and is just about to dose him in falmes, as Lady Sif jumps of a nearby roof, lands on tis back, and puts her spear through its neck. It switches down, as if it’s been defeated. But then the fires inside it roar up again. It starts by turning the joints in its hands a hundred and eighty degrees, before following suit with the rest of its body, finishing with its face, before attempting to blast Lady Sif. She jumps off at the last minute, landing on her back on the ground.

“Fall back.” She shouts, before running at them. Her spear is laying in the dirt where the robot let it fall right trough it. The robot keeps blasting after them, and the warriors fall backwards over a car, in Sif’s case, and are blasted through a window, in the rest of their cases. 

“Go. Now.” Thor says to them, sounding authoritative enough for both Jane, and Darcy, to obey him.


End file.
